The presentation will be

shared later over Twitter:

@ia
iA on IA
Why iA?
IA as a Brand

“You are going to call it IA? Hm...”

The Snobs

“IA is dead.”
The Serious Internet Professionals

“IA doesn't belong to you!”

The Branders

“It's too generic. It won't work!”

The Lazy Friends

“Informationarchitects.jp is too long.

You’ll get no Emails!”
The SEOs

“No one will find you on Google!”

Five Years Later...
What no one knew

I chose iA not because of IA but

because I liked the notion
“Information Architect.” The sound
and the notion.
Actually...

I didn’t like Information Architecture

for what it was (not my thing), I liked
it for what I saw in it.
And...

I haven’t changed my mind too much

since then...
What was “not my thing”?
Bullshit

Using big words for very very very

boring stuff.

Mental Model, Content Model,

Content Audit, Card Sorting,
Taxonomy, Ontology, Personas,
etceteraetcetera...
Religion

Purposely communicating in terms

that promised more than they could
ever keep (“content matrix”).

Being abstract, lifeless, nice and self

important. And threatening doom to
the non believers in a smart ass way.
Bureaucracy

Working with paper, scissors and

glue to produce digital interfaces,
creating cellulose mountains that no
one would ever want to even look at.
Too Academic, too Childish

Fighting against the stigma of “mere

theory” and “too much abstraction”
with group therapy boring games.

yeah, ok...
What did I see in it?
Philosophy

Philosophers are mind architects.

(Nietzsche). Information Architects
are philosophical engineers.
Rhetoric

The art and science of choosing the

right words and putting them in the
right order.
Lego

See what works and how it looks.

Build and rebuild until your initial
vision has found its shape.
And Architecture?

Yes, but... The proximity of

traditional architecture and IA is
often exaggerated. The Architecture
in IA is a metaphor.

If you stretch metaphors they break.

We do not build houses. We are
architects like Achilles is a lion.
Smørrebrød Smørrebrød rømmpømmpømmpømm

Information architecture is the recipe

for cooking good user experience.
But...Can Information
really be architected?
z

UX
Think Recipe!
z

IA
UX = Business + Design + Technology

Information Architecture is the

substance that holds all aspect of a
product together.
z

IA
IA is not a Phase

Information Architecture evolves and

refines itself throughout the product
development process.
z
z
z
IA according to iA
Business: IA as a Recipe for Cooking UX

IA is the first concrete result of user

and client research that our strategy
team molds into initial wireframes.
Design: IA as a Rhetoric

IA becomes tangible in the design

sketches evolving from the
wireframes. Strong information
architecture feels real.
Technology: IA as Philosophy

IA is what programmers do, moving from

the flat lands of Fireworks into
prototyping. Optimizing IA dialectically
through:

Prototyping, A/B testing, Studying user

behavior (Analytics, SE-logs), Fixing
mistakes watching and evaluating user
behavior live.
At iA everybody is an IA.

Project managers, Designers and

Programmers are constantly working
on the information architecture of a
site or a website. Each from their own
perspective with everyone else.
So what kind of results
do we produce?
Web Design
Paper Redesign Pitch
Identity, Interface Design
Web Design
iPad Design
Web Design
One more thing...
Information Architects’ Writer, Or Building the Perfect iPad Writing App
Gizmodo

Information Architects’ new Writer app brings that same hyperfocused

aesthetic to word-processing. WIRED

If you like writing, see the excellent Writer from @iA… (If you don’t like
writing, this may change your mind.) Liz Danzico

intriguing Khoi Vinh

as good as everyone is saying. I’ve so much writing to do on my trips, so

£2.99 well spent. Simon Collison

I’ve been using the beta for a while and it’s truly awesome. Vitor Lourenço

‘Writer’ from @iA is a beautifully crafted application for the iPad. If you
write, buy it. Mark Boulton

Excellent work. Writing just got better Aza Raskin

nice Hoefler+Frere-Jones
Thank You.
 The presentation will be
shared later over Twitter:
@ia